I shall regale you with my exploits

Well, if it isn't our little pilgrim returned. 

Hello, everyone, it's been a million years! You didn't know that? Well, then you obviously didn't give up anything for Lent, otherwise you'd join me in the refrain. That being said, it's time to get down to the bean.

little brother & i up in the mountains of steamboat, co

Lent, I think is a time for self-examination, a sort of maintenance check. Where are the areas I need to work on?
 Lent was forty days of trials for our Savior, forty days of tests probing for weaknesses. He didn't have any, but I have several (surprise!). None of them, once revealed, really shocked me out of my shoes -- it's just the regular run-of-the-mill vices like selfishness, temper, negligence that people struggle with every day. What Lent truly revealed to me is the need to try harder not to be these things. For example, one conscious 'good work' doesn't necessarily cancel out the evil thoughts and muttered words said when the horses refuse to be put away and have the almighty gall to actually toss their heads challengingly in your direction as they sprint away.
  Don't Take It Personally has be come my mantra.
{But I'm serious, people, my horses have minds like no others. They're organizing, plotting -- call it what you will -- against yours truly. I know it.}

steamboat valley

Near the beginning of last month, the Parental Figures, LB, and I went road tripping... er, sort of.... down to Colorado for a family reunion, a distant cousin's funeral, a visit to my mum's mother, and then to Denver to send off my Uncle, two aunts, and a cousin who all had flown (?) up for the funeral. Sound exhausting? Because it was. Horribly. In the course five days we traveled over 1,500 miles, spending close to 42 hours in cramped quarters. Plus I was {food} poisoned twice. Not a very glam trip. But, good news for you readers, that is all I'm going to say about that.

my only, pitiful skyline

moon jellies

One bright spot in the halo of doom that was that trip, we had time the second day we were in Denver to stop off at the Down Town Aquarium. I've mentioned before, I think, that Little Brother is obsessed with fish? Yes, well, he thought he'd died and gone to heaven when we walked through those doors. He might actually have seen them as pearly gates of splendor, but I saw photo-ops.

This fish I named Dorian, because his mouth was agape. He followed the red light on my camera preventing the shot I wanted to get of the anemone (right).

I'll admit it, I'm pretty proud of this shot. I mean, straight-out-of-camera goodness -- no editing required -- what more can a Snap-Happy ask for? Plus lion fish are pretty interesting dudes, even if they are an invasive species. Oh, yes I did learn some facts at this aquarium.... promptly forgot them again, but it still counts. Or should.

black canyon, co

Returning at last to our haven on the prairie, away from those formidable mountains, scrubby mesas, and dirty cities, I had a week to recuperate before the Spring Strings concert at the University hall. Big Brother chose this time to announce that we weren't going to play the song I had picked out and had been practicing since before Christmas, because he didn't like his cello part. I blinked and tried to take this in stride. "Okay, then," I said, "What are we playing?" He handed me a sheet of music with two short slip jigs entitled Brose & Butter & Catherine Haye's Delight. They didn't look too hard, but... "So, where's my part? This is in bass clef."
  "Well, yeah. It doesn't have a violin part. But you can transpose."
  "But I can't read bass that well."
  "You could play it on viola, then."
 Panic starts to rise in me. "I can't read C clef at all."
 "Oh."
I have seven days to learn this and preform it: "Oh." Is that all you can SAY?!
 That's what I wanted to say. Scream, actually. But instead I determined right then and there that I was going to learn this song so well that if anyone messed up it wasn't going to be me. Desperately, I ran to my amazing and tremendously patient teacher and within one lesson we had sorted it out well enough that with a few {thousand} listens to the CD, I had it down pretty well. And in the end, when we stepped out into the lights, heels clicking on the pine wood stage, it went well enough. However, it has been decided that hence forth there must be a discussion before either of us inflicts a heart attack on the other.

Meet my fur-babies. I dissolve into into a puddle of mush when they come scampering up to meet me.
  I should explain that technically they don't belong to me, but rather, my sister. She hopped off to San Padre Island for a week so LB and I got to take care of these guys and her horses. Hard to say who had the better deal.

I personally didn't care for their names all that much, so I hatched a plan that we would change them before Sister got back. They're only a few months old so they're still very impressionable. Joker became Loki, and Cope -- Munchkin. Or sometimes Munchymunchymunchy!
 Both of them are from the same litter, and they are Corgi-Blue Heeler-Border Collie mixes. Munchkin has the giant Corgi feet, and slightly boxy face of a Heeler. Loki on the other hand is much more Border Collie, with small feet and a habit of ambushing her unsuspecting brother from the bushes. Both are the sweetest, cutest things..! I miss waking up at the crack of dawn and driving for twenty minutes to have them greet me like they didn't think I was ever coming back. *sigh* I think I'm going to have to sue for custody.

Well, there it is. My return post. A week late.
  Ah, well.

Other mentionables:

• Spring has definitely sprung already! Whooo!
• I scrapped TLOS again. Began outlining for the first time. Am at last happy with the opening chapter.
• {I cannot believe I'm about to say this...} I've become a fan of Doctor Who. {The later seasons, anyway.} I believe you veterans have a term for this.
• ....Aaaaand my brain just went dead.

See thee later, then.

-Gwyn